15 June 2015

PROMPT:  In my perfect world...

Megan Monaghan Rivas, dramaturg/educator

Harriet, 48, stands at her tiny desk cluttered with papers.  An ancient PC sits amidst the clutter.
Richard, 55, bald, graying enters.
RICHARD
What’s the status, Harriet?
HARRIET
Ninety-seven children.  Most lost one or both parents, but it’s going to be at least twenty-four hours before we know for sure.
RICHARD
How many...?
HARRIET
Too early to get an exact count.  Could be as many as another dozen children dead, twice that number in the hospital.  Adults...
Harriet shrugs.
RICHARD
What are we doing with the children?
HARRIET
For tonight, we cleared out the big conference room and two smaller conference rooms.  We have some cots, blankets, pillows... Not sure any of them will sleep tonight anyway.  Trudy, Gus, and I will be staying tonight.
RICHARD
Long term?
HARRIET
Re-unification for as many have parents who are still alive.
RICHARD
And the others?
HARRIET
(shaking her head)
We might have enough beds around the state for a quarter of them.
RICHARD
Homes and shelters?
HARRIET
That’s everything.
RICHARD
(quietly)
Damn.
HARRIET
The rest will be staying... here.  In our conference room.  I’m sure a few... will step forward and take one or two children. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. will take some children.
RICHARD
And the rest?
HARRIET
We’ll set up a temporary shelter.  Somebody, a church, non-profit... somebody has an empty space we can use to house the rest of the children until...
RICHARD
Until what?
HARRIET
(shrugging)
We didn’t have enough beds before this.
RICHARD
What’s wrong with people?
HARRIET
You know as well as I do.  It takes a year to get the training and inspections and background checks for a family to get into the system, and then when they get a child...
RICHARD
The kid has been so abused...
HARRIET
Dealing with the kind of trauma these children have been through...
Silence.
RICHARD
At least this group of kids will remember that their parents loved them.
HARRIET
Unlike most of our children who don’t know why they’ve been beaten, raped, neglected and abandoned.
Silence.
HARRIET
It’s easier giving tax breaks to the rich...
RICHARD
...dropping bombs on the parents of children in other countries...
HARRIET
...gutting public education...
RICHARD
...than creating a culture that makes children...
HARRIET
... all children...
RICHARD
... the number one priority.
Silence.
RICHARD
What can I do?
HARRIET
Your going to have your hands full giving tours to the visiting politicians who want to look like they care.
Silence.
RICHARD
I remember an old joke from a British group called Beyond the Fringe.  A member of their group is planning a trip to America and he wants to know about our government.  One of the other members says...,
(adopting a terrible British accent)
... “they have a two party system much like we have here in England.  They have the Republican Party, which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party, and they have the Democratic Party, which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party.”
HARRIET
Ghosts appear and fade away...
End of play.